Fayadh escaped the death sentence. The news came in early February: his sentence was commuted to eight years jail and 800 lashes.

Ashraf Fayadh, a 36-year-old poet, is an arts curator who published a collection of poems titled Instructions Within and was arrested by Syariah police in 2013. The Saudi Arabian judge thought him an apostate. He was sentenced to death by beheading or hanging.

Fortunately, the outside world came to know of his fate. Prot